AI War 2 v0.702 Released! "Activating Mk1 Grinding Machine"

[keith.lamothe]

Release notes here!

During the development cycle of various AIWC expansions I reached a phase where I started naming the releases "Sanding Machine", "Mk2 Sanding Machine", and so on. It was a polish phase, albeit a violent sort of polishing.

We're not to the sanding stage yet here, but "Grinding" or maybe "Crushing", like this: https://youtu.be/0bSmO9N25Yk?t=1m32s

Tons of changes in this version. I almost named the release "Plasma Siege Cannon", after my favorite change (Plasma Torpedoes are now AOE with an awesome explosion animation), but the visual improvements are much broader than that. Probably most of those are from volunteer BadgerBadger, and they've made a MASSIVE difference.

There's also a neat gameplay change: when I took the shield off the Ark, I unintentionally made the game a lot more annoying as that led to your Ark being pushed around by any enemy shields (previously it could usually push them around, having the bigger shield). That's a legitimate behavior: when an enemy shield touches a unit, the unit gets pushed out of the way.

But the Ark now has the "is_chuck_norris" flag (not actually called that): when an enemy shield touches the Ark, the _shield_ gets pushed out of the way.

This allows for interesting, daring, and probably foolhardy tactics for busting up enemy turret balls much faster than normal: turn your Ark into a bowling ball and deprive the turrets of their cover. Never mind the fact that you just threw your King in amongst all the enemy pieces.

Enjoy!
Keith

[x4000]

Late-game chess where your king makes unexpected captures is one of my favorite things.  I love the new bowling ball chuck norris technique.

Also, that video really belongs on /r/oddlysatisfying/, I have to say.

Very pleased to have this one out the door, thanks for all the hard work.

[lessster]

Hi,

there is an issue (that is still present in the latest v0.702 of the game).
I am using Linux on all of my machines, so I don't know if the problem is Linux specific or if it exists on Windows or Mac platforms as well.
The thing is, when I move the mouse to the outer areas of the screen to make the screen scroll, it works only on positions where there is no GUI button.
For example in the lower left area there are some GUI buttons. When I move the mouse over one of the buttons and then keep moving the mouse lower and lower until I reach the lower end of the screen, then the screen is supposed to scroll downwards. But it doesn't. Instead I have to move the mouse a bit to the right where there is no button and then move it downwards to the end of the screen, then the screen scrolls as it should.

Can you look into this issue please?
It's really annoying and makes the game almost unplayable when fast movement is required.

Thanks a lot in advance.

[x4000]

Done for 0.703!  Thanks for the report, and sorry on the slow reply.

* Updated the newest versions of the game camera to no longer care if the cursor is over top of the gui for purposes of detecting screen edge scrolling.
** Thanks to lessster for reporting for absolutely annoying this was; we don't play with the edge scrolling on, and so hadn't noticed.

[zeusalmighty]

I  haven't been able to launch the game since .700 rolled out

Macbook Pro Retina 2012
2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

I've tried to attach the player log but every time I do it wont post =/

I get the menu screen with a "Type Load exception" listed on the development console

[BadgerBadger]

Yeah, OSX has been broken since Unity got upgraded. It's fixed on the next patch (fingers crossed for tomorrow)

[zeusalmighty]

Glad to hear that this issue has already been observed

[zeusalmighty]

Still unable to launch on my OSX =/

[BadgerBadger]

.708 works fine on my OSX machine. What errors are you seeing?

[zeusalmighty]

2/21/2018 10:23:45 AM   Current directory used: /Users/george/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/AI War 2/
2/21/2018 10:23:45 AM   Process Count = 0 so PlayerDataDirectory used: /Users/george/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/common/AI War 2/PlayerData/
2/21/2018 10:24:16 AM   Error: table 'MapTypeDataTable' does not have data for the following rows, which were referenced somewhere:
Asteroid
2/21/2018 10:24:16 AM   Game Version: 0.707
graphicsDeviceType in use: OpenGLCore
graphicsDeviceVersion in use: OpenGL 4.1 NVIDIA-10.28.10 355.11.10.10.20.111
graphicsMultiThreaded: True
graphicsShaderLevel: 46
operatingSystem: Mac OS X 10.13.3
graphicsDeviceName: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M OpenGL Engine
graphicsDeviceID: 4053
graphicsDeviceVendor: NVIDIA Corporation
graphicsDeviceVendorID: 4318
graphicsDeviceVersion: OpenGL 4.1 NVIDIA-10.28.10 355.11.10.10.20.111
graphicsMemorySize: 1024
maxTextureSize: 16384
npotSupport: Full
processorType: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3615QM CPU @ 2.30GHz
processorCount: 8
processorFrequency: 2300
systemMemorySize: 8192
supportsImageEffects: True
supportedRenderTargetCount: 8
supportsComputeShaders: False
supportsShadows: True
usesReversedZBuffer: False
2/21/2018 10:24:16 AM   Resolution changed to fullscreen 900x1440
2/21/2018 10:24:16 AM   Applied graphics settings:
AntialiasingMode:x2
UseSoftParticles:False
BillboardsFaceCameraPosition:False
AnisotropicMode:ForceEnable
TextureQuality:Full
2/21/2018 10:24:16 AM   Applied Framerate Type: Vsync (vsync: 1 targetFPS:0)

[BadgerBadger]

This is the same as https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=19445. Your last selected MapType got deprecated (it is now available as a dropdown under Clusters instead of being a map type outright). Please try editing the ~/AIWar2/PlayerData/newsettings.dat and replacing the line
LastSetup_MapType="Asteroid"
with
LastSetup_MapType="Clusters"
and let me know if that works.

[keith.lamothe]

Ah, that raises an important point I guess I never told you, Badger: once an InternalName has been present in a release build, we can never rename or remove it or it can break old saves. Unless it's from a type of record that's never serialized as part of a save.

Deprecation is handled through another flag/flags, though I don't recall the name right now.

[zeusalmighty]

I found the file you referred to "/newsetting.dat" but I seem to lack the means to edit it in anyway (it appears a document file in my directory)

Do I need a specific application to open this? My finder seems to think so

[Draco18s]

Do I need a specific application to open this? My finder seems to think so

It's just a text document. Open it in any raw text editing program (I don't know what Macs come with)

[zeusalmighty]

That did the trick! I can actually create a new game now =)